Welcome visit from (or to) long-lost family

One week from today my older sister arrives from Chicago to visit her long-lost brother, nephew and nieces.

This is historic. My relatives come to Erie as often as George Washington visited Fort LeBoeuf, except nobody put up statues of them.

I might this time. That's how glad I am to see Janet.

Ever since I became a dyed-in-the-wool black sheep for leaving Illinois for greener pastures -- was it really 29 years ago? -- I have been the family outcast.

All of the other Richardses remain hunkered in Illinois. Some spread out from Waukegan, where we grew up, to other Chicago suburbs, but most remain within reasonable driving distance, if not within the same area codes.

When I told my mother I was moving to Pennsylvania, she told me to make sure I see the Liberty Bell.

"That's in Philadelphia, Mom. About eight hours away."

"I think the Declaration of Independence is there, too."

"Eight hours, Mom."

"Do you want a salami sandwich?"

Oddly, Erie is as far from Chicago as it is from Philadelphia. But it doesn't matter with my folks. Erie may as well be a suburb of Constantinople. Any trip longer than a half-hour from their home just does not happen.

My mother and father have lived in the same house with the same phone number and the same couch, I do believe, for 57 years. Change of scenery does not suit them. Our vacations were at the end of the block -- a visit to the ice-cream shop for cones.

"Can't I get a milkshake?"

"Do I look like Howard Hughes, buster?"

So when I reached college age, I scrammed and wound up here. The first couple years, my sisters dutifully visited, but never my folks. They have continued to live as if they're surrounded by an invisible force field. But visits from my four sisters eventually subsided. In recent years, we settled for meeting halfway. My sisters and I would gather at a resort on a lake; in 2012 we had a relaxing time in South Haven, Mich.

My son's recent heart surgery apparently stirred something in Janet. She realized she doesn't see her expatriate brother enough or his kids, the ones who were born and raised in Erie.

So she bought a plane ticket, she really did, and she's coming next Monday to Erie for the first time since hair metal was in.

She'll hardly recognize the place. Like the kids, the city's grown up. I can't wait to show her around.

Most of all, though, I can't wait to see her.

DAVE RICHARDS can be reached at 870-1703. Send e-mail to dave.richards@timesnews.com.